TESTIMONY OF MARY MARGARET OVERBEY, Ph.D.DIRECTOR OF GOVERNMENT RELATIONSON BEHALF OF THE AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION SUBMITTED TO THE APPROPRIATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES FISCAL YEAR 2004 IN SUPPORT OF THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES

April 2, 2003

Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee,
the American Anthropological Association (AAA) appreciates the opportunity
to submit testimony to support an appropriation of $152 million for
the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) in FY 2004.
We thank you for the increased funding you have provided to NEH in
recent years and we ask you to continue to strengthen that support
in the future.

By way of background, the AAA is
the world?s largest professional association of anthropologists.
Founded in 1902, the purposes of the AAA are to advance anthropology
as the discipline that studies humankind in all its aspects, to further
the professional interests of anthropologists, and to disseminate
anthropological knowledge to address human problems. The AAA
represents more than 11,000 archaeologists, social and cultural anthropologists,
physical and biological anthropologists, and linguistic anthropologists.

We support President Bush?s request
for $152 million for NEH in FY 2004. We urge you to fund the
NEH at this level. We appreciate the President?s recognition
of the importance of NEH in proposing a 22% increase in funding for
the Nation?s single largest source of funding for humanities programs.
The President?s request increases NEH funding by $26 million, with
$25 million of that dedicated to the initiative We the People aimed
at improving the teaching of American history, civics and service
to strengthen democracy. The rationale behind this initiative
is supported by findings that many Americans lack an understanding
of American history, often failing to recognize the timeframes in
which important historic events occurred.

We support We the People as a broadly-conceived
initiative to enhance Americans knowledge of American history.
This includes an inclusive history of America from its early inhabitancy
by Native Americans and the first explorations and settlements by
Europeans to current global relations and influences affecting American
history. We the People will inspire a wide range of projects
that will advance Americans knowledge of our Nation?s history as a
whole.

Our support for an increased appropriation
of $152 million for NEH in FY 2004 is based on the belief that the
American people benefit from the knowledge generated by NEH-supported
research and projects. We believe that NEH provides an important
and unique role in enhancing our understanding of our Nation?s culture
and cultures around the world. Who we are, where we came from,
what unites us as a Nation, and what unites us as a worldwide community?
These are but a few of the questions that projects funded by NEH help
us to answer. We believe that NEH, because of its commitment
to serving this role, is a priority federal program that should be
maintained in the future.

Investing in NEH is a win-win situation.
NEH supports programs to better understand the history of humanity,
to better educate and interpret new findings to the public through
museum exhibitions, television programs, and conferences, and to expand
the knowledge and improve teaching skills of high school and college
educators. NEH funding also preserves and provides better access
to important, yet disintegrating documents, enables institutions to
develop and strengthen programs and resources, and assists state humanities
councils in fifty states to support local education and outreach projects.

Furthermore, a federal investment in NEH usually results
in an equal or greater investment by the private sector. Some
NEH grants require a match for each federal dollar and projects funded
often generate private sector support beyond the initial match required.
Other NEH grants provide the necessary seed funding for and lend a
legitimacy to projects that attract additional funding and support.

Increasing NEH funding to $152 million
in FY 2004 would be a step to regaining lost ground in the quest for
knowledge and the dissemination of that knowledge to the Nation.
Since FY 1995, NEH experienced a sharp drop in funding that affected
NEH?s ability to support significant research and other notable humanities
projects. With increased funding since then, NEH has been rebuilding
its capacity to support projects and programs in the humanities.
We ask the Subcommittee to assist in that rebuilding process by providing
the additional funds to do so.

NEH funds many beneficial activities
that we take for granted and the reach of NEH support is broad, enhancing
scholarly research, the development of public programs, and the training
of teachers just to name a few. For example, much of the historic
archaeological research in the US and abroad is supported by NEH.
Particularly significant are the studies focused on the origins of
civilizations in the Near East and the Americas. Every day, new interpretations
of how civilizations arose or declined result, at least in part, from
NEH funding. Importantly, the translation of these findings
often makes its way to the American public through other NEH-funded
projects. For example, many of the museum exhibits that interpret
this knowledge for the public are funded by NEH. Teacher training
focuses on educating K-12 teachers and college professors to ensure
that the knowledge they impart to students in the classroom remains
current and fresh.

We want to highlight two anthropological
and archaeological projects supported by NEH to illustrate the significant
contributions that result from a federal investment in NEH.

1. NEH provided funding
for the Jamestown Rediscovery Project, archaeological research focused
on determining the site of the first permanent English settlement
in what is now the United States. NEH funding enabled archaeologist
William Kelso (Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities)
to locate the original 1607 Virginia settlement and fort. Scholars
had long believed the fort to be lost in the James River, but Kelso's
work demonstrated conclusively that this valuable early American settlement
remained intact on shore.

Since its discovery, Kelso and colleagues
have been excavating the site to reconstruct this early and important
phase of American history. Their findings have been reshaping our
knowledge of our Nation?s founding and how the early settlers lived.
In addition to the hundreds of thousands of 17th century artifacts
that have been found, Kelso and colleagues have determined the outline
of James Fort, unearthed burials of early Jamestown residents, and
uncovered Jamestown?s last Statehouse.

The project continues to make exciting
discoveries. The latest find, in February 2003, is what Kelso
believes to be the grave of Jamestown?s founder and designer of the
Fort, Bartholomew Gosnold. Gosnold died a few months after Jamestown
was established, and historic records indicate that he was buried
with ceremony. The early burial site that Kelso and colleagues
unearthed included the remains of an individual who was buried with
what Kelso believes to be a flag staff and flag draped over the coffin.
DNA testing of a known living relative of Gosnold and the human remains
at Jamestown will be done to confirm if the remains are indeed those
of Gosnold. Gosnold?s ancestors married into the Windsors, the
Royal Family of England. This current find has generated a good
deal of media attention, including stories in the London Telegraph,
the Washington Post, and on the BBC among others.

The Jamestown Rediscovery project
represents an exemplary success story. NEH funding served as
seed money to get the research going. NEH support and the discovery
of Jamestown attracted funding from the Commonwealth of Virginia,
private foundations and individuals and generated public interest
that far exceeded expectations. Kelso?s work continues at Jamestown
in preparation for celebrating the 400th anniversary of the settlement
in 2007. The discovery of Jamestown and continuing excavations
attract public attention and public programming (films, etc.) that
features archaeological work at the site. Many school children
and others visit the site each day.

2. NEH has provided funding
to determine the historical ties of four different Native American
tribes to the San Pedro River Valley of southeastern Arizona.
The Center for Desert Archaeology received funding to undertake ethnohistoric
research among the Tohono O?odham Nation, the Hopi Tribe, the Pueblo
of Zuni and a consortium of Western Apache tribes under the lead of
the San Carlos Apache Tribe. Since 1990, the San Pedro River
Valley has been the focus of a long-term Center for Desert Archaeology
research and preservation program. The Center has documented
more than 500 archaeological sites in the San Pedro Valley and the
NEH-funded project will enable Center archaeologists and the tribes
to interpret the archaeology and history of the area.

T.J. Ferguson is principal investigator
of the project that involves in-depth interviews with tribal members
to take down oral histories and determine how the San Pedro Valley
fits into each tribe?s history and traditional use of the area.
Ferguson and colleagues are working with each tribe independently,
each tribe will review the work, and the tribes will share their histories
with each other.

Importantly, this is a collaborative
project that has involved the four tribes in the project from its
inception to its development as a proposal to the conduct of the research
to the release and use of the research findings. Tribal members
participate in the project in various ways. Each tribe has appointed
tribal researchers to help conduct the interviews and tribal cultural
advisors to advise the project. The tribes will receive copies
of the field notes and photographs taken during the research. In addition,
the tribes will receive a publication that synthesizes these multiple
histories of the San Pedro Valley. The Center for Desert Archaeology
will produce a special edition of its quarterly publication Archaeology
Southwest, written for the public, that summarizes the outcomes of
the project.

Mr. Chairman and members
of the Subcommittee, these are but two examples of the outstanding
scholarship and public benefits that result from a federal investment
in the NEH. We believe that NEH plays a unique and valuable
role in promoting the progress and scholarship in the humanities and
the dissemination of that knowledge to the public. We urge you to
increase the funding for NEH to $152 million in FY 2004 and to support
the rebuilding of NEH as the Nation?s premier granting agency for
the humanities. To do so will benefit the advancement of scholarship,
the American people, and the Nation.